Engaging Communities in Area-based Regeneration: The Role of Participatory Evaluation

The importance of engaging communities is increasingly recognized within area-based regeneration programmes. There is also an acceptance within evaluation theory and the wider policy making and practitioner community that local people's involvement in the process of identifying and researching community needs and aspirations offers the potential to generate meaningful data while also facilitating a subsequent increase in community capacity and capital. However, there are a number of difficulties involved in negotiating a participatory approach which relate to the constraints of national policy, tensions in partnership structures, levels of commitment to community empowerment and community capacity. This paper explores the extent to which these barriers can be addressed by drawing on a number of projects undertaken in the Tyneside conurbation in north-east England which sought to encourage community involvement in evaluation by employing, training and supporting local residents to carry out a range of baseline and impact surveys. It shows that a model of participation can be developed which allows local people to play a successful role in the research process, while also delivering a range of data that will assist partnerships in the planning and analysis of services to meet local needs and facilitate regeneration. It is a model which is underpinned by a concern to facilitate empowerment, to foster inclusivity, and to ensure flexibility in research design and feedback to communities. It also has the potential to impact on institutional capacity within area-based partnerships, structures and environments, and as such it will be of interest to policy makers, practitioners and communities with a genuine commitment to adapting the principles of local people's participation in the process of change.